More workplaces than ever are issuing Macs, iPhones, and iPads to users, but …

The topic of Apple in the enterprise can often be a heated one—as we've learned over the years via our forums and story comments. But according to a newly published report from Forrester Research, Apple is indeed "infiltrating the enterprise." Apple products have become a growing presence in many workplaces, and as a result, says Forrester, vendors will need to change the way they deal with their clients.

Forrester surveyed 9,912 workers in 17 countries to discover that 21 percent of "information workers" use one or more Apple products as part of their job (one percent reported using three Apple devices for work). The most common of those devices was an iPhone, followed closely by the iPad and then the Mac. Forrester says that close to 50 percent of firms in mature markets offer Macs at the office as well, but only 30 percent of survey respondents said their companies support them, "implying that a significant percentage of companies issue Macs but don’t officially support them."

Indeed, active support for Apple's products remains an issue in the enterprise, but the situation is steadily changing as more employees and IT managers show interest, according to Forrester's data. The firm goes so far as to say that Microsoft's dominant presence in the workplace may suffer due to Apple's increasing influence, in particular, among high-level executives. "[O]ur data shows that Apple is already present with 41 percent of executives," Forrester wrote in its report. "Coupled with Microsoft’s absence on mobile devices, this signals that Windows’s dominance is at an end."

We wouldn't be so quick to say that Microsoft has an absence on mobile devices or that Windows's dominance is "at an end," though. Microsoft is a company whose strengths lie in catering to the enterprise, whereas Apple's strengths weigh heavily on the consumer side; those two trends will most certainly not change anytime in the near future. What is clear from the report, however, is that businesses appear to be more open than ever when it comes to allowing employees to use their own devices and preferred platforms in order to get things done in the office. This appears to be a partial result of Apple's heavy focus on the consumer (though readers should be warned: it appears that IT departments are overall less tolerant of employee-owned Macs than of employee-owned PCs).

"Apple’s success in serving individuals with personal devices well-suited for the intersection of work and personal lives creates a huge public example of the power of individuals to drive technology change at work," Forrester wrote in its report. "This empowerment of the individual and his personal technology brought in from home will shift vendor energy from formal bring-your-own-PC (BYOPC) programs to broader bring-your-own-device (BYOD) programs, instigated by employees, that create access and consistency for documents and applications across mobile devices and PCs."

Parts of Forrester's report echo another report by the NPD Group published in December 2011. At that time, NPD said the iPad was leading the pack for small and medium businesses looking at tablet purchases for the coming year, with 89 percent of firms between 501 and 999 employees in the market for new tablets. Forrester's data shows that 81 percent of IT decision makers report either internal interest in the iPad or active support by their company.

Apple's executives are constantly highlighting how many Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies are testing or deploying iOS devices. While it often comes off as a marketing message, it's hard to deny that the presence of Apple products in the workplace—to do real work—is visibly increasing over time. (When I last worked in a physical office, "Macs are for designers; PCs are for developers and everyone else" was the prevailing thought, which is quickly becoming an ancient attitude.)